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Ashish Chauhan dreams of pursuing an MBA at an American university next year, a goal he describes as “stamped in his brain.”
The 29-year-old Indian finance professional (whose name has been changed by request) hopes to eventually work in the U.S., but says he now feels conflicted amid a immigration queue sparked by supporters of President-elect Donald Trump over a long-standing U.S. visa program.
The H-1B visa program, which brings skilled foreign workers to the United States, faces criticism for undermining American workers but is praised for attracting global talent. The once-critical president-elect now supports the 34-year-old program, while tech billionaire Elon Musk defends it as key to securing top engineering talent.
Indian citizens like Chauhan dominate the program, receiving 72% of H-1B visas, followed by 12% of Chinese citizens. The majority of H-1B visa holders worked in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and 65% in computing-related jobs, in 2023. Their average annual salary was $118,000 (£94,000).
Concerns about H-1B visas tie into broader immigration debates.
TO Bank investigation report shows that US immigration increased by 1.6 million in 2023, the largest increase in more than 20 years. Immigrants now make up more than 14% of the population, the highest number since 1910. Indians are the second largest immigrant group, after Mexicans, in the United States. Many Americans fear that this increase in immigration could hurt job prospects or hinder assimilation.
India has also overtaken China as the top source of international students, with a record 331,602 Indian students in the US in 2023-2024, according to the latest report. Open House Report on International Educational Exchange. Most rely on loans, and any visa freeze could devastate family finances.
“My concern is that this (resistance to H-1B visas) could also lead to animosity towards the Indians who live there. But I can’t put my ambitions on hold, put my life on hold and wait for the volatility to subside because that’s how it has been.” . for years,” says Chauhan.
Efforts to restrict the H-1B program peaked during Trump’s first term, when he signed an order in 2017 that increased scrutiny of applications and detection of fraud. Rejection rates soared to 24% in 2018, compared to 5-8% under President Barack Obama and 2-4% under President Joe Biden. The total number of H-1B applicants approved under Biden remained similar to that of Trump’s first term.
“The first Trump administration tightened H-1B visas by increasing denial rates and slowing processing times, making it harder for people to get visas on time. It’s unclear if that will happen again in the second Trump administration” Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration expert at Cornell Law School, told the BBC.
“Some people like Elon Musk want to preserve H-1B visas, while other officials in the new administration want to restrict all immigration, including H-1Bs. It’s too early to say which side will prevail.”
Indians have a long relationship with the H-1B visa. The program is also the reason for “the rise of Indian-Americans toward the most educated and highest-income group, immigrants or natives in the U.S.,” say the authors of The Other One Percent, a study of Indians in America.
American researchers Sanjoy Chakravorty, Devesh Kapur and Nirvikar Singh observed that new Indian immigrants spoke different languages and lived in different areas than those who arrived before them. Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu speakers increased in number, and Indian-American communities moved from New York and Michigan to larger groups in California and New Jersey. The expert visa program helped create a “new map of Indian-Americans.”
The biggest draw of H-1B visas is the opportunity to earn significantly higher salaries, according to Chauhan. The United States offers higher salaries, and for someone who is the first in their family to obtain professional qualifications, earning that much can be life-changing. “The fascination with H-1B visas is directly related to the wage gap between India and the United States for the same engineering positions,” he says.
But not everyone is happy with the program. For many, the H-1B program is an aspirational path to obtaining permanent residency or a US green card. While the H-1B itself is a temporary work visa, it allows visa holders to live and work in the US for up to six years. During this time, many H-1B holders apply for a green card through employment-based immigration categories, typically sponsored by their employers. This takes time.
More than one million Indians, including dependents, are currently waiting in employment-based green card categories. “Getting a green card means having to wait endlessly for 20 or 30 years,” says Atal Agarwal, who runs a company in India that uses artificial intelligence to help find global visa options for education and employment.
Agarwal moved to the United States after graduating in 2017 and worked at a software company for a few years. He says getting the H-1B visa was pretty straightforward, but then it seemed like he had “hit a dead end.” He returned to India.
“It’s an unstable situation. Your employer has to sponsor you and since the road to a green card is so long, you’re basically tied to them. If you lose your job, you only have 60 days to find a new one. Every person who goes to the United States United on Merit should have a path to a green card within three to five years.”
This could be one of the reasons why the visa program has become linked to immigration. “The H-1B is a mobility visa for highly skilled workers. It is not an immigration visa. But it is affected by immigration and illegal immigration and becomes a sensitive issue,” said Shivendra Singh, vice president of development at global trade from Nasscom, the trade group for the Indian technology industry, told the BBC.
Many in the United States believe that the H-1B visa program is flawed. They cite widespread fraud and abuse, especially by major Indian IT companies, which are the main beneficiaries of these visas. In October, a US court ruled that Cognizant guilty of discriminating against more than 2,000 non-Indian employees between 2013 and 2022, although the company plans to appeal. Last week, Farah Stockman of the New York Times wrote that “for more than a decade, Americans working in the tech industry have been systematically laid off and replaced by cheaper H-1B visa holders.”
Nasscom’s Chowdhury maintains that H-1B workers are not underpaid, with their average salaries more than double the U.S. average. Companies also spend tens of thousands of dollars in legal and government fees for these expensive visas.
Furthermore, it hasn’t been a one-way traffic: Indian tech giants have hired and supported nearly 600,000 American workers and spent more than $1 billion upskilling nearly three million students at 130 American universities, according to Singh. The Indian tech industry has prioritized hiring American workers, bringing in employees on H-1B visas only when they can’t find locals with the skills they need, he said.
India is working to ensure the H-1B visa program remains secure as Trump prepares to take office later this month. “Our countries share a strong and growing economic and technological partnership, and the mobility of skilled professionals is a vital component of this relationship,” Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal told reporters last week.
So what should students who aspire to work in the United States do? “Any immigration changes in the United States will take time to implement. Students should choose the best college for them, wherever that may be. With good immigration advice, they will be able to decide what to do,” says Yale-Loehr.
For now, despite the political turbulence in the United States, India’s interest in H-1B visas remains strong, and students are determined to pursue the American dream.